Tracking Sandwich Eaters

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

I have this tendency to shrug away instances of superstition as a flaw of character, although in my quiet moments I believe there is a spiritual dimension to this world, a supernatural ether that surrounds us, affects us, although we do not have the eyes to see it.

Last night, I was haunted by nightmares again. My bed, if you must know, has a pull-out that has to be manipulated from one side, and the room -- blank wall to one side and a bookshelf wall to the other side perpendicular to the former -- is arranged in such a way that the bed's headboard must face the free space of the room's center. So we always sleep with our feet facing the walls. We have always slept this way, except on rare occasions when we feel bored and decide to shift positions with our feet against the headboard, and our heads near the walls. The walls are decorated with a flood of books on the shelves, some paintings and framed photographs, and what-not.

Last night, I was haunted by nightmares again. And always the same strange one. And always of me walking down this dark road, with only the moonlight to show me the way. You know how it is when things glow faintly in the moonlight? The road glowed, but only barely. Everything else was dark as the blackest sin, althought there was a trace of treetops in the distance to cut a jagged line against night sky. I walked slowly, towards the rock beside the road ahead of me. No, a boulder. It was huge, and dark.

And I knew, the way one knows from some gut instincts, that someone -- or something -- lurked behind it, waiting for me.

That was when I woke up, trembling -- and then a very strong epiphany came to me, unusual for a brain still half asleep. It's above you, something from the back of my head said. I nudged M. awake, and I asked him, "Remember when we were sleeping this way before, and you were in this spot where I am sleeping now? You had a bad dream of your teeth falling away." He nodded.

Another time, too, when I was in the same position on the bed, I had dreams of demons chasing me.

All my nightmares, it struck me, occurred when I was sleeping this way, on this spot. For any other sleeping position, I usually had the most inane of dreams -- nothing to be scared about, to wake with a start from, always sweating and with heart beating fast.

Why must we always have bad dreams once asleep in this same position, on the same spot?

That was when we decided to look up.

Hanging from the wall, right above my head, there was the small dreamcatcher Beth gave me a long time ago. When I took it off its peg, it was dusty and had a musty smell. In my hands, it felt damped, in the wet way mildew attacked. It felt evil.

I realized it was not catching my dreams at all; it was tormenting me and M. instead, dripping nighttime visions of gruesome things.

Before we went back to sleep, I hurriedly threw the dreamcatcher away. I slept away the rest of the early morning with the comfort of dreaming nothing.